850 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. Xo. 492. 



genius, and not a specialist in the line of 

 work for which a student is to be prepared. 

 To a large extent the specially qualified or 

 exceptional man naust decide for himself 

 as to the mental equipment required for 

 his individual work. The education of the 

 exceptional man is a delicate task. Too 

 much training in the methods others have 

 followed may make him an imitator instead 

 of a leader ; too little training, and he may 

 fail to acquire the mental tools necessary 

 in his particular line of work. The best 

 that can be done by universities desirous 

 of encouraging their sons and daughters 

 of exceptional ability to make the most of 

 their mental gifts is, seemingly, to furnish 

 them with opportunities to develop ; to en- 

 deavor to train the body as well as the 

 mind, to educate the hand as well as the 

 head, to supply libraries, laboratories and 

 gymnasiums, to all who may be inclined 

 to cultivate and develop the higher strains 

 of inheritance or the special variations 

 latent in them. From the thousands who 

 present themselves for this arduous work 

 it is the duty of the university to select 

 the few of exceptional ability and encour- 

 age them to devote their lives to the task 

 of carrying on research in the direction in 

 which they are especially qualified. 



Once the exceptional man is discovered, 

 the purely economic interests of the com- 

 munity, if no higher principle, demand 

 that he be assisted in every practicable way 

 in carrying on his great work. Here again 

 the encouragement of genius is a delicate 

 task. Discovery means close application 

 and long continued and painstaking work. 

 The discoverer, as previously suggested, 

 may be likened to a mountain climber. He 

 must put forth his best efforts, deny him- 

 self many of the pleasures of life, and toil 

 on for the most part alone, so far as intel- 

 lectual companionship is concerned. He is 

 but a man, however, and lavish emoluments 

 mav hire him to walk in the customaiy 



paths leading through bowers of pleasure, 

 to the neglect of the more rugged ways 

 tending upward; too little aid may leave 

 his task so difficult that a great part of his 

 energy will be consumed in overcoming the 

 difficulties of mere existence. 



Both in the education of the thousands 

 in order that the exceptional man may be 

 found, and in the assistance the university 

 may in its own interest extend to him as 

 a research worker, the persons best quali- 

 fied to act as trustees for the community 

 are the men with sufficiently wide training, 

 and at least an appreciation of the higher 

 and more ennobling aims of discovery, who 

 are interested in similar lines of work. 

 Such men are to a great extent included in 

 the faculties of the higher institutions of 

 learning. Committees from several such 

 faculties, it is to be presiuned, would be 

 best able to decide as to what extent the 

 men with new ideas or of exceptional abil- 

 ity should receive financial assistance. 



The Place of Research in the Vniversity. 

 — In view of the several considerations 

 touched upon in the preceding pages— 

 namely, the catholic aims of research; the 

 narrow bounds of the known ; the fact that 

 discovery is the all important initial step 

 in applying the materials and forces of 

 nature to man's use; the convincing evi- 

 dence as to the general and widely spread 

 awakening among the leaders of industry 

 in reference to the economic importance of 

 fresh discoveries ; and the growing recogni- 

 tion of the fact that not only skill, but 

 originality, pays— the question presents 

 itself: What should be the attitude of 

 communities and institutions of learning 

 toward research ? In this connection com- 

 munities and institutions of learning may 

 be considered together, since many schools, 

 colleges and universities are supported by 

 public taxation. 



Public schools, state colleges and state 

 universities, so far as is declared in the 



